Academics in Hong Kong are worried the government will interfere in research, restrict participation in international collaborations and set off increased self-censorship amid the imminent passage of a new national security law.



Scientists and researchers are already feeling the heat from the pro-Beijing camp even before the law is enacted, possibly by the end of June.



Recently, University of Hong Kong scientist Yuen Kwok-yung took criticism from Beijing loyalists after he and his team published a study that estimated the mainland Chinese city of Wuhan, the source of the global deadly pandemic, had up to 2.2 million coronavirus carriers, 100 times higher than official figures.



Growing concerns about academic freedom were reflected in the June 12 edition of the academic magazine Nature, which interviewed several Hong Kong scholars anonymously after Beijing proposed the national security law in late May.



One administrator at a Hong Kong university told the magazine that they worried the law could be used to restrict the publication of sensitive research, such as studies on the new coronavirus. On the mainland, scientists need government approval to publish research relating to the origins of the pandemic.



Another scholar, who sits on the editorial board of a scientific journal, told Nature that future research grants from overseas or international collaborations — particularly with the United States — might be defined as foreign interference and be controlled under the national security law.



A foreign researcher studying science and ethics at a university in Hong Kong said they feared even science could become politicized, and that criticism of the scientific and technological practices of the central government while living in Hong Kong could land them in jail.



Shekhar Madhukar Kumta, assistant dean of education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong medical faculty, said the law might increase self-censorship. Scholars were already wary about making comments or publishing research that could upset Beijing, such as negative results from a large vaccine trial, or work that could distress financial markets.



Natalie Wong, a visiting environmental researcher at the City University of Hong Kong, said she did not consider her research on environment management and governance in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to be particularly sensitive. However, she had decided to do less work about mainland China and focus more on existing datasets rather than generating her own, in order to lower the risk of her work being classified as subversive under the new law.

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